Victim blaming is fine, when it's not us

So every time you have a terror attack - 9/11 especially -, usually it's a sign of bad taste and horrible personality to suggest the country which fell victim to the attack may had something to do with why the attack was perpetrated. So the last seven-eight decades of US policies in the Middle East had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, and if you mentioned that they might, you were defiling the memory of the innocent victims, and were an America-hater, who should really just go and kill themselves silently, as they are beyond redemption. After all, claiming that the terrorists acted because of a grievance would justify their actions, right? And if we do this, then we use the lives of those innocent victims to further our agenda, right? Excusing the actions of the terrorists, that's what it is! This is not the right time to discuss these things, not while the bodies are still warm... so there will be no lessons learned. Ever.

(Which is a convenient stance because we don't need to take a look at ourselves, and it also has the added benefit of making it impossible to treat the root of the issue, hence we will always have a convenient threat we can point at when we chip away civil liberties, and bomb countries.)


The same is true with all the terror attacks that happened in Europe; saying that France's or Belgium's inability to assimilate large amount of immigrants might have something to do with what happened (they are rather be focusing on a straw men claiming the attackers were domestic born), that Germany's decision to let fresh immigrants in might have something to do with these things, that the UK's, France's actions in the Middle East and North Africa might have something to do with what happened, is an anathema. "Fringe" papers and websites (whose readership reaches into the high dozens) do discuss these connections, but "reputable" newspapers and other media outlets will never touch this topic; instead they present a whitewashed picture of ourselves, and how those scary terrorists are hating us for our freedoms.

But not when it comes to the Ruskies.

They are to be totally blamed for what happened. (Published mere days after the attack.) But, wait, the hypocrisy is not finished! After all, the Ruskies are responding with revenge (forgot about Afghanistan and Iraq yet?), and their foreign policy is repugnant... Definitely forgot about Iraq and Afghanistan, then.

The double standards are astonishing.

Addendum. Well, it didn't take long, did it? Hypocrites.

Anti-Hungarian bias in the media

Yes, I write a lot about it. Because it annoys me. Because it is present, and it is frankly strange, that the Western media would pick on a shitty little country that matters to no-one. Since I happen to be from that shitty little country, it annoys me. It also worries me, since the reason Hungary got the short end of the stick after WWI (and was punished way more than anyone else on the losing side) was one part due to the incredibly anti-Hungarian press in the UK and elsewhere. While British and Russian football hooligans were fighting on the streets, the British newspapers were worried about Neo-Nazi Hungarians who did not actually do anything- showing the photo of a Hungarian fan who happens to live and teach in Spain.

This is especially prominent during the times when the center-right is in power; during these times the cries of fascism, the return of the ovens and whatnot are always the loudest. One reason is simple: the Hungarian Left loves to complain about the destruction of democracy, the free press, and the inherent racism of Hungarians which can clearly be seen by them electing the wrong people. (They are fine of labelling their own people genetically inferior, too.) Also: antisemitism is on the rise, obviously. Even though facts and statistics don't really show it -especially comparing Hungary to France, the UK or the US, Hungary is clearly on the verge of firing up the ovens. Interestingly, when they don't get the stuff they want, they just bury an interview. 

The last couple of years of migrant crisis was also a great demonstration of this. They were complaining about closed borders (even though anyone is still free to pass through the actual border crossings, and ask for asylum), the brutality of Hungarian police (with carefully edited footage and no proof whatsoever), the chaos at the Keleti Railway station (as if the government could be held responsible for people striking up camp in the middle of Budapest...), and for not letting the migrants on the train (even though the Schengen Agreement kind of forbade letting this happen), where Jews are in danger (yet interestingly French Jews are fleeing to Israel), and so on and so forth. When the government's propaganda (which was quite inappropriate) mentioned no-go zones in the UK, the BBC and others jumped on it; even though the BBC four was airing "No go Britain" at one time, and there are issues with the whole thing. Sorry, guys, if you make documentaries like these, people will believe them, regardless of what the actual situation is... so you really should not complain. If you made a misleading documentary, then the onus is on you for the mistake. And if all else fails, just do the old guilty by association smear quoting some BNP nutjob. Suddenly his delusions mean that Hungary, is in fact, Nazi. Don't get me wrong: it's not about how innocent and pure the government is. It's about how biased the western media is, regardless of what the government does. 

The whole of EU used Hungary for their virtue signalling exercise, meanwhile quite content in the knowledge that someone else -that someone they are condemning with the strongest words- are doing their own dirty work. Once the migrant flood rerouted (even though, if they really wanted to keep to the law, they still could have applied for asylum), they themselves started building fences- which, apparently, are not that big of an issue. Only the Hungarian fence hurts these paragons of morality. The ones built before or after are fine. A fence between two EU nations (Slovenia and Austria), does not offend anyone, either. (Oh, but it's not a fence at all... it's a "gate with wings".)

Hypocrisy much?

Three more examples demonstrating the blatant anti-Hungarian bias in the Western Press.

Example number 1.

The recent shift to the Right in The Netherlands filled a lot of people with worries until the election. So what was the reaction? Did we read angry editorials that would shame OId Testament Prophets about the inherent Nazism of the Dutch?

Did we?

Well, not exactly.

We read a couple of lamenting articles on how we need to respect the differences in the EU project, and how not respecting them could lead to a powerful push-back.

So when populism makes way in Western Europe -you know, the civilized folks- then we need to consider the reasons, and gently ponder on the solution. When populism -and not even as extreme as the Dutch- is making way in Central -sorry, Eastern- Europe, then it's those unwashed barbarians are tainting our sacred European project!!

Example number 2.

Gabor Vona, the leader of the actual far right, the Jobbik  Party (think of Hungarian Ukip or Tea Party) went to London. Now, you don't have to make facts up to write bad things about this guy. You don't need to lie -there's enough bad things for everyone to choose from. Yet, the BBC did just that. For some reason which I cannot fathom, an ortodox Jewish organization actually demonstrated for him. The BBC simply edited the photos so that the signs were not visible, and then claimed that they were demonstrating against him.

It took a while -and some serious complaints from the group involved- to correct the mistake, but the first iteration of the correction was to simply remove them from the article altogether. Only in the next version did they get back in, with the correct caption this time.

Example number 3.

And then there's when the stars align and you can smear Trump and Hungary at the same time.

We're talking about Sebastian Gorka here. Who is, apparently, a Nazi. Let's just ignore everything about the case that might prove us wrong; we finally can call Trump a Nazi, since he is employing one.

Interestingly, the Jerusalem Post -of all newspapers- came up with a long analysis of the case, doing actual journalism. Journalism, which only required about 30 minutes of google searches, but apparently was not a feasible option for The Independent.

Talking about the JP... you know when foreign and domestic press is writing about Horthy as a rabid Nazi intent on exterminating all Jews? Well... 

It is indeed astonishing that aside from modern historians (whose work nobody reads) only the JP came up with a factual description of Horthy. Again; it's not to say he was a blameless saint with a halo; it's about not lying about the past.

This should really tell you something.


Addendum: after an extensive email correspondence with the Independent (because I honestly thought they'd need some information so I shared the JP article with them), this was published. The article is far from coherent, but hey! We can cry Nazi!

Double standards, hyperboles and a complete lack of historical knowledge

That's one thing that the NYT's facebook page was full of idiots comparing Hungary to the Nazis because they have decided to detain asylum seekers until their status can be verified. I mean this is quite expected from the virtue-signalling part of the "liberals" who love to show how pious and true to the cause they are by condemning anything and anyone.

This, obviously, was not the first time. A certain Austrian chancellor did the same in 2015, the Romanian Prime Minister did the same, and several newspapers alluded to the same issue: just because a country does not agree with Brussels and Germany (and upholds the law as it is bound to do), it's essentially a Nazi country. (Although Orban makes it hard to agree with him; he is kind of a douche.) It's a difficult concept apparently: just because a country has a different take on how it imagines its future, and decided it does not wish to share the problems with large-scale immigration of low skilled Muslim immigrants (and what comes with it: enclaves, increased crime rates, etc., etc.), it does not mean that they are Nazis.

And now a Saudi prince has stood in line of the Nazi-train. It seems like we have finally reached a breaking point where even the most socially sensitive countries, the well-known bastions of humanitarianism have had enough and are now forced to say it how it is: Hungarians are Nazis for obliging the law, and making sure that only people who are bona fide refugees can get into Europe. Amid the huge outcry I still have not heard any alternative solution how to deal with hundreds and even thousands of people who can just disappear at whim after submitting their paperwork (if they bother to submit it at all). Strangely silent are Merkel and Junker about this whole issue; what I suspect is that everyone are secretly relieved that this is being done, but submit to the whole charade so that they don't look like they approve. Let someone else take the blame for an unpopular decision.

What I would like to know is how the "progressive left" feels like being on the same side as the Saudis... (Although to be fair it never really bothered anyone in the West. Beheadings, slavery, women's rights, illegal wars in Yemen never really appeared on the radar of these newspapers and politicians. Not to mention those millions of people they took in on humanitarian grounds.)

Concentration camps and migrants

So the Hungarian government has decided to set up guarded camps for asylum seekers until their application is processed, housing them in containers. This, obviously, set off a hysterical outburst from a lot of western newspapers, and the comment section of the NYT's facebook page filled up with Americans drawing parallels to cattle wagons and containers, and also brought up extermination camps.

Well, putting aside the lack of historical knowledge, and the fact that these containers are the very same ones workers use as temporary housing at building sites (and nobody complains about exterminating them, or keeping them in inhumane conditions), and the fact that the present clusterfuck in the Middle East is principally the US' fault (Americans don't like to clean up their own mess, but are quite judgemental of people who are left with it), let's look at this issue, shall we?

First issue. A large portion of these migrants are not war refugees; this has been established over and over and over. Bangladesh, Morocco, Pakistan, and Tunis (among others) are NOT war-torn countries.

Second issue (which ties in with the whole "closing the borders" thing): Hungary is on the Schengen border. (Well, Greece is too, but nobody expects them to be able to close it.) Hence it is duty bound to protect the border. Even Merkel is talking about protecting the borders, and stopping the influx of undesirable elements, even though she also screamed murder when this protection actually was taking place. Just to recap: the borders are not closed. Anyone can go through the border control points, and apply for asylum. The illegal border crossing was stopped by erecting a fence. You come in, you apply for asylum, you wait. Whereas the 1.5 million people ending up in Germany came through the fields, and did not stop until Germany to apply for asylum. Which is not according to the rules. In fact, it's highly illegal.

Third issue: terrorism and other shenanigans. The Germans lost about 130 000 people. They don't know where they are. They can't be reached after they submitted their paperwork. A lot of rejected asylum seekers -no surprise- also disappeared. A sexual predator or two, a couple of terrorists also have known to disappear until they surfaced with their dicks in some poor kid, or behind the wheels of a high-jacked truck. So, with the knowledge that there is free movement within the Schengen zone I really, really would like to ask anyone who's complaining how they envision trying to keep the undesirables under control. Ahmed the terrorist can come in, claim asylum, and then disappear if you don't keep him in one place. During the process you might find out that he was sucking some ISIS boss' dick, or cutting heads off in his free time, it's too late; he is already in Germany or wherever, planning to do what terrorists do.

So I would genuinely be curious how you guys expect to screen hundreds of thousands of people and how you think you can deport them in case their application is rejected, if they are free to bum around the whole of EU.

We want your data. Or else

This has been a law a long time: Border Control has a right to search any and all electronic device you bring into the USA, 4th Amendment be damned. Obviously the Founding Fathers felt that laptops don't fall into the same category as sealed letters. Obviously. And it happens in Canada, too.


So this happens, and then the whole of Western world applauds US politicians expressing concern about data privacy laws in China and Russia without any obvious discomfort from cognitive dissonance. Where is this concern when it comes to the USA?

The latest furore in certain parts of the media when it actually happened to a real person (meaning: American) is quite loud nevertheless.

Let's stop for a second and think about this, shall we? Aside from the strange legal twisting of the Constitution so that you can claim that it is legal to essentially seize anyone's most private information at the border, there are things to consider here. One thing particularly.

The US is claiming it can do legally what even the Stazi, the KGB and the Gestapo could not really hope to achieve: get everything, every single piece of data you own. You have to give them access to all your files, all your information, otherwise you are either denied entry and/or arrested. It claims powers that the only the most autocratic regimes have ever claimed: an absolute right to every single piece of your private life. (The US also claims it has an absolute right over your life -namely it can end it without any legal processes, but it's also something we should not discuss at this present junction.)

Because let's face it: nothing can be hidden, unless you are content living in the Virginia mountains along with the rest of the nutjobs who are stockpiling canned food and ammunition before the inevitable FEMA crackdown on freedom (sorry, Freedom) comes. We all have our lives encoded in bits and bytes; it's a fact of life. Regardless how it's stored, you should still should have right to privacy. The US can just force anyone to give it up (the parts they have not already captured through the NSA) and -aside from some "fringe" lefties, like Chomsky- nobody is raising an eyebrow.

So where was the furore from these very same media outlets over these years? A couple of feeble articles on how to deal with the situation were all I could find from the "mainstream"; some reports on the CIA's capacity to hack into anything, and use cars to kill people; it's hardly the angry media response on an unprecedented infringement on personal privacy by the torch-bearer of freedom.

Despite of this we still claim the US is a liberal democracy. All this after the NSA, illegal wars and torture. Weird, isn't it?

How shady statistics is used to lie -poverty in the US and around the world

So here's the thing. I lived in the US and I've lived in several European countries. I know the US-as far as you can know a continent-wide country-, and I have first-hand knowledge how poor people (one in six, apparently) are in the US and what challenges they face; after all I was among them. (I made 16K which was skirting the poverty line in the early 2000s. Later on I made much more, so I got to experience middle class standards as well.)

Same with Europe: I grew up poor, later I experienced the middle class experience, and I've obviously seen how my friends and colleagues live, and obviously talked to people.

So I have no illusions; I've seen all over Florida, South Caroline, Washington DC, New York State, Virginia; I have seen how poor poor people really are. And then you get these articles.

Especially this graph is telling:

Apparently the author thinks that the bottom 10% poor in the US live almost as good as the top 10% of Japan (and Poland?? How did Poland get to the same level as Japan? What arcane statistical methods they used?), they live about the same as the top 10% of Israel, and they live considerably better than the top 10% of Portugal.

Just let it sink in for a while. It might make someone living in a Salt Lake City suburb feel awesome about himself (time for some 'Murrica! shouts), but just stop for a second and really think. The richest 10% of Portugal apparently live on food stamps, have no health insurance, and cannot afford higher education. Really. (Interestingly the author himself admits he lives in Portugal; apparently he is unfamiliar how Portuguese people live, or he is unfamiliar how the bottom 10% of the US society lives; either way it's strange.) Let's compare how the Swedes and the Germans live. Or even Italy -you know the place where the upper 10% lives lives that are as bad as the lower American 10%'s. Child mortality, healthcare costs, class divide, prison population size... hardly seem like the Americans get the better deal. Or perhaps mention the inequality adjusted HDI. How about increases in life expectancy worldwide? Perhaps not being able to afford life-saving drugs? But let's move on, since it does not fit our agenda.

But in the meanwhile, we also have reports like this. Also stories showing people not being able to afford other food than McDonald's -contributing to obesity and other food-related health issues. (As a side note: it's really astonishing; I found that it's cheaper to buy fast food than to buy stuff for a picnic in a supermarket, for example. A sandwich with some fries and soda will cost you about 6 bucks. If you want to make sandwiches and have some salad, you'll spend about 25 for two. Which tells you a lot about healthy choices and money.)

But let's just forget the poor and how they live better than those even poorer Europeans. (Although let me tell you: I'd rather be poor in Hungary than in the US; at least I would get healthcare.)

Let's just think about the quality of life. How do you define quality of life? Does a middle class American with no maternity leave, hardly any vacation time and almost no sick leave have a better quality of life than someone who does not have to worry about his  health insurance if he loses his job? (Or she, but it would make the sentence clunky to specify.)

Does having a mortgaged house, a crippling student debt that cannot be defaulted, and an almost complete lack of social safety net really makes your life better?  How about the people who cannot get insurance because they have preexisting conditions? Does having two cars in the family and a crappy house in a suburb in the middle of nowhere make up for the choice between an expensive -and life saving- treatment or sending your kid to college? Or how about a friend of mine who did not get to see his GP about his diabetes for six months because he just graduated with his PhD and was temporarily unemployed?  Does it sound like a well-off nation? Does it even sound like a civilized nation? Has the author ever toured the slums around (and inside) big cities? Are those -usually black and latino- people really better off than the richest 10% of Portugal? Are they even better off than the lowest 10% of Portugal? I kind of doubt it.


I'm really stunned by these articles; either the authors are stupid or they think everyone else is, but regardless which option is true, it's just astonishing. The media creates a narrative which seems to become truth. Incredible.

So here's an amazing analysis from Reddit about the issues concerning tribalism, the Left and Right.

I'm just gonna post it in full. (It's a tendency of all the "big" media outlets to steal shit from Reddit; at least I'm properly crediting it.)

All I'm saying is if someone does something bad in a protest, that doesn't make the protest bad.

I think you've chosen the wrong argument here. I think what you should say is that the reason for the protest might not be wrong just because it turns violent, as in the position or argument that the protestors are basing their protest on can stand regardless of the protest actions. That could be true.

However, a protest is what happens at it. A protest that turns violent is, by definition, a bad protest. There is a difference behind the position of the protestors and the behaviour of the protestors. Bad behaviour doesn't mean a bad position, true, but the protest itself is the behaviour, not the position. You can hold the position with or without protesting. The behaviour is the protest and the protest is the behaviour.

Being "in the right" or "in the wrong" is also multifaceted. If I tell you that 2+2=5 and you say, no, it's 4, and I disagree, so you punch me in the face, then you are factually correct in your information but morally wrong in your actions on how to convey that information.

Beyond that academic discussion, there is a deeper issue though. Resorting to violence itself tends to come from a few main sources. People who resort to violence generally often can't win the argument on merits and get frustrated, so turn to violence because they truly believe something even if they can't demonstrate it to be true or articulate it. For example, the claims that Milo is a white supremacists, racist, sexist/misogynist, Islamophobic, or otherwise are baseless because there's both no evidence of any of that and there's plenty of evidence he isn't. But, he tends to vehemently criticize the "social justice" left, so they hate him and either tend to shout him down or turn to violence, since they can't win by debating on facts and reasoning. (I say this as somebody who disagrees with much of what Milo has to say in academic terms, but his critics are more wrong than he is.)

Another related reason people turn to violence is they've fallen prey to ingroup/outgroup tribalism, which is perhaps best modeled by Realistic Conflict Theory and best demonstrated in the Robbers Cave Experiment (RCE).

Essentially you can create hatred, vitriol, and violence between groups is two easy steps. Step 1 is to divide people into groups. That can be random as in the RCE, arbitrary such as the eye colour in Jane Elliott's classroom experiment, or essentially any differentiator: political leanings, favorite sports team, religion, nationality, accent, height, PC vs Mac, Android vs iOS, Coke vs Pepsi.

Step 2 is to set the groups in conflict, either via a competition (rewards, punishment, social status, attention, special privileges, etc.) or sparked by group-based insults ("fascist right", "communist left", "criminal blacks", "privileged whites", "terrorist Muslims", etc.).

That's it. Then buy some popcorn and watch it degrade into violence. In the RCE there were fistfights, sabotage, burning of other teams flag, and so on. In Jane Elliott's class, the different groups oppressed each other given the chance.

In addition to the violence and hatred, the groups tend to create in-group social norms arbitrarily and out-group narratives, typically with "us" being saints and righteous and "them" being evil. Both sides tend to rationalize, including rationalizing violence because "they" are evil, and the ends justify the means. Facts be damned.

In the U.S., this tribalist behaviour is clearly demonstrable in the massively partisan division. On top of that, you have the fringe voices becoming the justifications. On the fringe right you have the white supremacists who statistically represent a small rounding error of Trump supporters yet these are who the political left use to smear Trump supporters. On the fringe left you have the "social justice" activists and anarchists who represent only a fraction of the anti-Trump crowd (and/or Clinton supporters), yet this is who the political right use to smear anti-Trump supporters. (Milo is one of them too, who equate SJWs with liberals or anyone left of center, which is where he is very wrong of course.)

It also happens that these are the two groups that instigate Steps 1 and 2 of Realistic Conflict Theory. The fringe bigots on the right group people by traits: skin colour/race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and so on. They put them in a competition in a hierarchy with the dominant/majority at the top and the marginalized minorities at the bottom, and suggest everybody must conform to the interests of people at the higher end of the hierarchy.

The social justice left also group people by traits: skin colour/race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and so on. They put them in a competition in a hierarchy with the marginalized minorities at the top and the dominant/majority at the bottom (known as the progressive stack), and suggest everybody must conform to the interests of people at the higher end of the hierarchy. And, they refer to groups having "voices" and treat people based on their grouping. It tends to derive from a form of Marxism of flipping the powers as applied to minority status instead of by peasants vs industrialists.

Voila, both of these fringe groups both contribute to creating hatred between groups. Both contribute to each others existence and power, and both pull the partisan politics to more extremes. And both are very, very wrong. Both commit the fallacy of division, assuming things that apply to the groups as a whole apply to individuals described by those groupings, and both commit the base rate fallacy. The fringe right confuse the fact that "most terrorists are Muslim" (true) with "most Muslims are terrorists" (not true). The fringe left confuse "most privileged people tend to be whites/males" (true) with "most whites/males tend to be privileged" (not true).

The correct answer is for both fringes to stop treating people as being part of a group defined by traits, and instead treat people as individuals who have traits. Treat them by the content of the character (merit), and not the color of their skin (race). This is, in fact, what is written into human rights codes, that all individuals are equal to other individuals and have the right not to be judged based on such traits, except where the trait is the merit of interest itself. It is then violations of that rule that are bigotry, and that applies equally to all people of all races, sexes, gender identities, nationalities, ethnicities, and so on. It's the violation of the principle that matters, not the particular race or group that matters.

So what does this have to do with violence and protests? Protests often turn violent when the protesters are themselves subject to tribalist tendencies; the "us vs them" mentality. This is why right-wing racists turn violent against racial groups and fringe left-wing groups, and why left-wing Marxists tend to turn violent against right-wing groups. It's also why liberals, libertarians, and moderate conservatives don't tend to turn violent, because they are based on common rules for all and equal freedom and equal rights for all, not group against group fighting for power.

So, in that context, a protest turning violent is an indicator that the protestors are not doing so based on taking a reasoned position, but rather are being tribalist. It's not so much your example, "if an anti-fascist protest happens and a protestor punches someone", it's more that the "anti-fascist" protest is very likely wrong that the people they are protesting are fascist at all.